A Science Fiction Text Adventure

Post 220

> Waverton: Ask Phil if he wants to get involved in the F.f.E.C., and if he does then talk to Feer about it.

Waverton sits down with Phil. Phil says he'd definitely like to help. When Waverton talks to Feer about it, he says that indeed, that would be ideal, and he's glad Phil is feeling up to it and interested. But he would like to interview Phil himself. Any ideas about how Phil would be able to help and get involved?

> Nanette: Send a small, undetectable swarm to follow Tag everywhere you can. Also, analyse posts from both of their accounts to see if there's any sign of a secret code or something.

Unfortunately for Nanette, Tag's office has anti-nanite security. If he's talking to someone, he could be talking there. She also analyzes the accounts for a secret code. If there's a secret code, it's not something she can find.

>(Internal) I take it Phil won't appreciate being linked to our interface.

You can ask. But probably not, given his experience.

>(Nanette) What's Phil's internal situation?

There aren't any nanites active.

Edited by PointMaid on Mar 15th 2021 at 4:10:01 AM

>(Waverton) Hey, "Phil! Wanna get mind-controlled?" Ask Phil if he would like to be connected to the gestalt.

Edited by dvorak on Mar 15th 2021 at 3:20:23 AM

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

> Nanette: Research what types of nanites could be allowed through shields. Surely if someone had a medical implant, the shields would let those through, for example? And what about nanites that do maintenance on the shielding devices? What is it that makes the shields identify what's allowed and what isn't? (Are the sorts of technical documents one might need for this research available on the Bintanni internet? If not, maybe ask Feer about it, or one of the experts we know.)

Post 221

>(Waverton) Hey, "Phil! Wanna get mind-controlled?" Ask Phil if he would like to be connected to the gestalt.

As you surmised, Phil is a bit sensitive about this. "I'd… really rather not. Please." You even catch him giving Waverton a nervous look later.

> Nanette: Research what types of nanites could be allowed through shields. Surely if someone had a medical implant, the shields would let those through, for example? And what about nanites that do maintenance on the shielding devices? What is it that makes the shields identify what's allowed and what isn't? (Are the sorts of technical documents one might need for this research available on the Bintanni internet? If not, maybe ask Feer about it, or one of the experts we know.)

The sort of documents that would identify the exact parameters for that particular building aren't on the 'net, for good reason. However, Feer says that identifying codes for individual makes or groups of nanites that might need to cross the barrier can be added to the security system. From the inside of the security barrier, and you'd have to know how to do it.

—- Later, Blu calls. They've fabricated the pieces of the mini-ship and are just testing it to make sure it's made to specifications.

Feer says they have time for an interview with Phil in the morning. Phil agrees. He's still giving Waverton the occasional nervous look.

What do you do in the meantime?

>(General) Lunch, I guess.

>(Waverton) Appologise to Phil.

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

> Nanette: After Waverton's apology, give him a brief disapproving look (somehow) and reassure Phil that you have no interest in adding anyone who does not wish to join. "We're only here to help." Then scan Phil once more to confirm that his nanites are still down, telling him the result.

> Internal: (The wine bottle is still on the ship, right?)

Post 222

>(General) Lunch, I guess.

Yeah, it's probably time you all got some food into yourselves. You make yourselves some sandwiches and cut-up fruit.

>(Waverton) Appologise to Phil.

"I'm sorry, Phil. I know what you've been through, and I can understand why you'd be hesitant… I wasn't trying to pressure you. I just thought it might be… helpful. In our work, to do something against the people who did that to you."

> Nanette: After Waverton's apology, give him a brief disapproving look (somehow) and reassure Phil that you have no interest in adding anyone who does not wish to join. "We're only here to help." Then scan Phil once more to confirm that his nanites are still down, telling him the result.

Nanette adds her reassurance to Waverton's. She scans Phil's nanites, assuring him that they're still down. The neutralizer is working.

> Internal: (The wine bottle is still on the ship, right?)

Yes.

...Is there anything you can do before tomorrow?

>(General) Come up with a name for and subsequently christen the messenger ship.

Edited by dvorak on Mar 17th 2021 at 10:52:19 AM

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

> FTL prepared nanites: Make sure you're on the mini ship before launch.

> Wine bottle nanites: Move around, try to roll the bottle, see if the ship AI reacts.

> Nanette: (Are the shields around a whole building/area, or just over entrances? How easily can nanites go through solid walls?)

Post 223

>(General) Come up with a name for and subsequently christen the messenger ship.

The crew come up with, well, several names.

Waverton: "Well, we're stuck out here trying to make contact with home and get back. How about Voyager? ...On the other hand, maybe not. Don't want to jinx the thing and have it get lost in the Delta Quadrant." He's been watching a lot of old Star Trek episodes recently.

Lucie: "Friendship! We could build it because we made friends with some Bintanni, and that was and is rather our mission, isn't it? It's a ship. Oh, and did you know the first American orbital flight was made in the Friendship 7? John Glenn back in 1962."

Aaron: "Yeah, but this isn't crewed. First communication from space, first satellite, would be Sputnik. Anyway, I like Kleine Bottle. Little Bottle, but with the 'little' in German. Tiny message bot ship. Kinda like sending a message in a bottle. And it kinda references extra dimensions in FTL with the reference to a Klein Bottle."

Ruby: "I don't have much. In biochemistry we call long-range signaling molecules hormones… I don't know that that's any good for a name, though."

> FTL prepared nanites: Make sure you're on the mini ship before launch.

[]

> Wine bottle nanites: Move around, try to roll the bottle, see if the ship AI reacts.

As long as they stay dispersed enough not to be visible to the cameras – about the same distance as you need to evade human eyes – they don't get noticed by the ship AI until they roll the bottle.

> Nanette: (Are the shields around a whole building/area, or just over entrances? How easily can nanites go through solid walls?)

They're over entrances; the nanites cannot go through solid walls, though. I'll also say that they are very careful about any cracks and put security shields on the ventilation system exhaust. It's a government building in a society where there are a lot of nanites – it's built with security from nanites in mind.

Do you like any of the ship name suggestions, or do you suggest something else? Anything else to do before tomorrow, or have some dinner and go to sleep?

>(internal) I like "Klein Bottle," personally. Makes me think of that one song by The Police...

Edited by dvorak on Mar 18th 2021 at 9:51:04 AM

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

> General: Agree on Aaron's suggestion of Kleine Bottle.

> Nanette: (How do the shields stop nanites? Do they damage nanites that touch them? What happens to a person or animal with unauthorised nanites inside them if they try to go through?)

Post 224

>(internal) I like "Klein Bottle," personally. Makes me think of that one song by The Police...

> General: Agree on Aaron's suggestion of Kleine Bottle.

The gang like Aaron's suggestion to name the mini ship the "Kleine Bottle". That's what they'll call it.

> Nanette: (How do the shields stop nanites? Do they damage nanites that touch them? What happens to a person or animal with unauthorised nanites inside them if they try to go through?)

They send some directed EMP at the nanites, which will damage them. This will damage the nanites but not a person or animal, unless they rely on something that the EMP will damage.

---

The group, including Phil, has some dinner, take turns at the shower, stream an old movie from the ship database, and go to sleep. Phil liked seeing a human movie again after so long! When they wake up, it's a big day. The mini-ship should be finished with testing and Feer has promised to give an interview to Phil about helping the F.f.E.C.

Does the information about how the anti-nanite shield works help Nanette? Any advice for Phil before he has his interview? Final preparations before the Kleine Bottle gets launched? Anything else?

>(Nanette):

get:specifications_(hardware)

get:specifications_(software)

Edited by dvorak on Mar 19th 2021 at 8:48:31 AM

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

~dvorak : Just to confirm what you mean, you are attempting to look up specifications for Nanette herself? (Also, do you mean amount of RAM and ROM for hardware, and do you mean OS for software? Specificity in exactly what you're looking for would help there too, although I'll try to do my best.)

Yes, exactly. Earth nanotech may be significantly different. An EMP wouldn't cause much trouble if she runs a quantum computer system and has no iron in her components.

Edited by dvorak on Mar 19th 2021 at 12:25:48 PM

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

I'm fairly sure the Nanette nanites are still from Bintanni, so the shield would work on them anyway?

> Nanette: Don't be obtrusive, but send a small amount to observe Phil's interview.

> Internal/General: (Has the food in the inventory gone off yet?)

Post 225

>(Nanette):
get:specifications_(hardware)
get:specifications_(software)

Heavily modified/unique design Bintanni nanites. They have already been confirmed vulnerable to EMF, where she's lost some nanites already. Includes carbon, silicon, various metals as doping and in special purposes.

Software is also unique. The closest match that is searchable is from a Bintanni neuroscience medical device. This project was a side project of some scientists closely tied to the Bintanni military. The principle it's built on is closely related to what Earth scientists of the 20th and 21st century called neural networking, and is flexible.

> Nanette: Don't be obtrusive, but send a small amount to observe Phil's interview.

Everyone has breakfast… and then Feer calls Phil in for his interview.

Nanette sits down to observe Phil's interview.

Feer asks about Phil's feelings about working with Bintanni after what he's been through. He admits that it makes it hard for him to trust Bintanni, but he recognizes that and wants to get over it. Working with Bintanni will help him, he hopes, emotionally process that not all Bintanni are like that. Feer asks about his family, his interests (anthropology, linguistics, playing the guitar), and asks Phil if he would write down everything he remembers about his time as a captive. They know it's asking him to relive things he might not want to… but it could be important, and it's a show of faith.

> Internal/General: (Has the food in the inventory gone off yet?)

This is a good question. It hasn't been that long, and the food was packaged in containers and processed in ways that extend shelf life. So… currently, it's fine. But if you want to rely on it you may want to keep an eye on it. And replace some of it, since it was used.

Any things you need to do before you check on the mini-ship launch?

Edited by PointMaid on Mar 20th 2021 at 10:40:51 AM

> Internal/Nanette: (Could part of Nanette be used to help with food preservation? Maybe if she researches local microbes and mould etc, then are the nanites the right size to deal with those? (Or are there already dedicated food preservation nanites being used anyway?))

Post 226

> Internal/Nanette: (Could part of Nanette be used to help with food preservation? Maybe if she researches local microbes and mould etc, then are the nanites the right size to deal with those? (Or are there already dedicated food preservation nanites being used anyway?))

She might be able to deal with microbes and mold and such. The food is at the moment preserved in more traditional ways – canning and jars, dried fruits, that sort of thing.

---

The group joins Ro, G'al and Blu as they prepare to launch the Kleine Bottle. When Aaron explains the significance of the name they've chosen – and he does have to explain both what a Klein Bottle is and the meaning of 'sending a message in a bottle'— they seem to like it!

Lucie helps load their messages back home and the schematics for the mini ship into the ship's memory drive.

Are there any last things you need to check or do before you send the ship off?

>(Waverton) Look up a christening ceremony that doesn't involve smashing a bottle of champagne (impossible to get) against the ship's hull (fragile) and perform it (there's gotta be one). The ship will be ready to go then.

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

> Nanette: Find some dirt in the corner or something and practice dealing with germs, once you've completed the research about them. (Presumably the nanites are small enough to shake off contamination afterwards?)

> FTL nanites: (Final check that everything's prepared?)

Post 227

>(Waverton) Look up a christening ceremony that doesn't involve smashing a bottle of champagne (impossible to get) against the ship's hull (fragile) and perform it (there's gotta be one). The ship will be ready to go then.

Since the Earth ship-christening ceremony he's familiar with won't work in this case, Waverton asks if there's a Bintanni ship (vehicle? machine?) naming ceremony that will work. (Do they even name machines in general? Nanette does not seem like a Bintanni name, so that's not a real indication, is it?)

Ro looks a little confused at first, but then suggests inscribing the name into a larger-than-life-size model of the ship. Ro and Aaron quickly find some polymer clay and fashion a good, oversized likeness of the little ship, adding a base to it so it will stand up in the right orientation and kinda look like it's hovering in the air. They inscribe "Kleine Bottle" on the base, as well what they decide is the closest Bintanni equivalent: a phrase meaning "Untie the knot and a little hope flies free".

> Nanette: Find some dirt in the corner or something and practice dealing with germs, once you've completed the research about them. (Presumably the nanites are small enough to shake off contamination afterwards?)

[Roll: 6 – Worked Too Well]; Nanette tries this, but is having a hard time differentiating benign, necessary and beneficial microbes from harmful ones. Er… does it matter? Maybe some more practice is in order.

> FTL nanites: (Final check that everything's prepared?)
They're all set.

...And the ''Kleine Bottle" is off!

What are you going to do now?

>(Nanette) Continue practising.

>(General) I think a small celebratory shot of liquor and a song is in order to conclude the ceremony, then back to work. Someone ask the ship a traditional song for launching a boat. Ask Ruby to update the log and send it to Feer for approval.

Now everyone pat me on the back and tell me how clever I am!

> Nanette: See if either of Tag's accounts or anyone who frequently interacts with either of them have interacted with Ruby's blog in any way.